A working mom's life in front of and behind the camera.

Our First “Child” Turns 10

It’s hard to believe it but our first “child’ turns 10 today. In actuality, I really don’t know how old he is, but we celebrate today since it was the day we brought him home and became a family.

You might have guessed by now, but I’m not referring our biological son, rather our first four-legged child, a Russian tortoise named Mortimer.

King Mortimer I

His official name is King Mortimer I (you can thank my husband for that one). Mortimer was supposed to be a Christmas present for my then boyfriend (now husband). Instead, he became our first child.

For those who are not familiar with tortoises, they are excellent pets. They need to be fed once a day and cleaned roughly once a month. While they do hibernate, they love people (hence why ours resides in our living room). They also live long lives so who knows, he may out live us all.

When we got Mortimer from the pet store, we were not informed how old he was. Then again we also were told “he” was a “she” and were surprisingly corrected on that several years later (yes we named a girl tortoise King Mortimer I, but I guess it worked out in the long run).

Our little Mortimer has lived quite the life so far. From a fraternity house, multiple apartments, rental homes, and finally to our most recent place, he has been with us every step of the way. He’s been to both family cabins and regularly comes on camping trips with us, staying in our pop-up and soaking up the summer sunshine.

Camping Tortoise

While most may think it silly to celebrate the birth or rather adoption of a pet, they truly become members of the family and you cannot envision your life without them. So if you have a dog, cat, rabbit, fish, hamster, bird, lizard, or tortoise, enjoy each day with them and make sure to teach your two legged children the value of having pets.